The school initially suspended the three and a sophomore for vandalism for 10 days on May 9, one day after they used spray paint to cover the words “God hates fags” scrawled on a rock near the high school entrance. Although the rock is frequently painted by students, the four also spray-painted “Love” more than 25 times around the flagpole and more than 25 times on sidewalks on the north side of the building.
But the students said they believed the anti-gay message was an attack on their openly gay friend, and they wanted to make a statement.
“We did it because it upset us that somebody could be that rude to our friend, that they could say something that close-minded. We were very insulted,” 18-year-old Shayna Kamilar, one of the suspended students, told the Detroit Free Press for a Thursday story.
Vinnie Mascola, 17, said “our goal was that every single student who walked into Howell High School would have one word on their minds, and that word would be love.”
Outraged by the students’ suspension, about 375 other students skipped class and protested in front of the school. A few of the suspended students and others from the same high school have been discussing the whole affair in the comments section of Zero Intelligence, a blog devoted to criticizing “zero tolerance” rules in schools:
Ask the school board why the students promoting love recieved a code of conduct outlined punishment and why the hateful people recieved a small punishment even though they deserve expulsion…
Email Margaret Hamill, the principal of Howell HS, at hammillm@howellschools.com to ask her to lift the suspensions.
I sent a letter–you should too.
Damn–it looks like they shut down the principal’s email address.
BUT, you can email all the assistant principals, and the prinicpal’s secretary here, as these seem to be working:
mulligam@howellschools.com, hargrovs@howellschools.com, sharpm@howellschools.com,
paiged@howellschools.com,
seversc@howellschools.com
so awesome!
im psyched that, this peice has information about how we can support them!
thanks for putting up the emails!
Spam em til their let back in school!!!
By overwhelming the e-mail server you are punishing the wrong people.
The tech guys have to deal with this virus like activity and it will only add fuel to the
people’s fire who you disagree with.
costing the school extra expense and bringing down their e-mail server is not exercising freedom of speech
this stuff costs businesses millions of dollars a year and they lock people up for it.
re: trevor’s comments: i don’t want folks to “spam” the school’s email — i just want to encourage people who are so inclined to send a (single) message to support the students. as a website administrator, i know the evils of spam, and of hate mail. so please send an email in support of these students, and make sure to keep it polite, respectful, and to the point.
i kinda doubt that we could “spam” the school enough to shut down their servers or cause a significant headache on the tech side. besides, i don’t think instilling fear that you might “punish” some poor tech guy is productive, nor any reason to not express your opinion to the school directly.
but if this story gets around anymore, then the email might start to make a difference. . . and be out of our hands anyway.